


Lifting the Veil

by flecksofpoppy



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Abstract Overwrought Imagery, Angst, Beverage Fueled, Eric goes off the deep end, M/M, Tumblr made me do it, Why is the musical so fucking sad, no regrets, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-07
Updated: 2012-12-07
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world blurs when glasses come off. Eric goes off the deep end. Imagery galore. (Now available in Russian!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifting the Veil

**Author's Note:**

> [Inspired by listening to the operatic bit at 4:30 for like two hours or something on repeat.](www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7_VGPXp-h8)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, the lovely [Ayara Sky](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1981629/) translated this into Russian, which can be found [here](http://ficbook.net/readfic/491387)!

Reaping is much the same as the blink of a human eye. It's a strangely delicate process, like the flutter of eyelashes -- just a light touch with a scythe does the job much better than hacking and shredding.

Reaping can only be seen in the periphery by any living person. Like a shadow cast against the brilliance of snow, it recedes as quickly as it arrives; people doubt themselves all the time, and they doubt their own sight as well.

Alan's scythe has become a cane. Eric watches the light catch in its immortal steel, the strokes becoming more uneven with each reap as the folktale consumes him from the inside out.

They say in the living world that some people's hearts are too big. They say, in that wretched place, that life goes by in the blink of an eye.

Eric has despised human sayings from the time he was a junior. It's one thing that has helped him avoid his own peripheral vision; the knowledge that humans are susceptible to silly stories and folklore.

Reapers don't need peripheral vision; they see straight ahead what the human eye cannot.

Humans have a pupil that requires light to function. It contracts and expands and changes; it adapts, it is not timeless, it is not without flexibility.

Sometimes, Eric will take off his glasses just to see what the world looks like when it blurs together. Everything bleeds: colors, edges, words.

Vision is a strange thing, almost like folklore itself. It starts out sharp, a straight forward tale -- _what you see is what you get_. Death is an occupation, reaping is a laugh, everything will always be just as it is.

Eric tells Alan at the pub that he should have another pint. He tells him that it's better not to get carried away with these things. He smiles at him and shakes his head.

And then Alan tells Eric deep in the darkness of night, when there is no light, that he sees things out of the corner of his eye. He hears delicate footsteps, ethereal voices, simple songs to lure him away, and none of it requires sight.

Eric holds Alan later, when neither one of them are wearing glasses, and the only thing that exists is whispers, fingertips, the arch of backs, the gentle breaths that no one hears, that no one could ever understand.

Eric doesn't need to breathe, but like a pupil, he's sure that his heart (if he has one) contracts and shrinks. Heartbeats are a human trait, much like peripheral vision.

But he's sure, without seeing, that Alan has a heart ensnared by thorns. Alan takes his glasses off more and more, and cries less and less.

It is the strangled heart that will kill Alan.

Eric would like to give him his; but he realizes, metaphorically, in grotesque human terms, that he already has.

It's really not so grotesque -- metaphorical hearts, superstitious folklore, peripheral vision. Not now.

Eric thinks that in the corner of his eye, he sees the flash of a scythe; he thinks, with each heartbeat, that it's Alan reaping as if death is a ballet.

He thinks it as he strikes; he thinks it as the blood spills without a reel; he thinks it as he takes off his glasses and stares at the moon.

How bright it is, like a pupil contracted so wide that it's been made blind.

He takes off his glasses, thinks of Alan, and everything smudges; how beautiful it all is, how lovely.


End file.
